


Dance Dance Revolution

by x_los



Category: Blake's 7, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Magic, Crossover, F/F, M/M, Post Gauda Prime, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 03, Steven Universe AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:18:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4115266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He could still count on one hand the times he'd fused. Twice in prep-trials and once in his final training exams--all difficult blendings that had held for seconds before collapsing. Just to prove he understood the basic theory... He'd never had the opportunity to fuse because he wanted to. Some gems, he knew, were interested in that sort of recreation. It had always struck Avon as unbearably intimate."</p><p>A Blakes 7 and Steven Universe fusion (about fusion. META FUSION!!). Primarily B/A, with some ensemble stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dance Dance Revolution

" _Well?_ " Avon snapped into his communicator, using his irritation to disguise his nervousness.

No answer. Avon wanted to pace, or rather (if, just this once, he was being honest with himself) to fidget. He could feel the muscles of his calves straining. They were bunched because he was hiding behind a boulder a hundred metres from the central compound's guarded main door. The twitchiness was, of course, a physical manifestation of his desire to stand up, run into the compound and see what was going on. But doing so would be rash to the point of idiocy, and he left that sort of display to Vila. If Vila and Blake weren't answering, it was likely because they weren't at liberty to do so--and if they were in trouble, then demanding updates on how they were getting on was _not_ going to improve the situation, or provide him with information he particularly wanted to hear. He grit his teeth and tried not to move unnecessarily.

This was one of the many reasons he disliked bodies--clumsy, messy, impulsive things. They clouded one's judgment in a manner he did not appreciate. Having a body was also the easiest way to ensure losing it. If Avon could get away with it he'd spend the majority of his time in gem-form, directing the electronic and magical systems he took an interest in and felt a comfortable mastery over. Safe. Something he'd rarely been, since he'd met--

 _I'm sure Blake is fine_ , Cally's voice murmured in his mind. It always felt sudden. There she was--like he'd not noticed her coming into the room, and suddenly her hand was on his shoulder. (That had actually happened, on more than one distressing occasion.)

Cally was a force-grown gem of the type the Homeworld used expressly for combat, and to mine colony planets. As such she was blessed with battle-sync psychic abilities outside the purview of traditionally-grown gems like himself. She was also more comfortable with physicality than most proper gems could bring themselves to be. When the previous Homeworld had been exhausted of its mineral wealth, the Gem Empire had shifted its core to Earth, and had begun to use the now-developed planet as a base for expansion. They'd started to grow standard and elite-grade gems on Earth, incorporating elements of the local biology into the base body-patterns these gems assumed, so that they could better interface with the human worker-classes that comprised the lower grades.

Somewhat to the gems' surprise, fragile but adaptable and quick-breeding humans, capable of independent labor and thought, had turned out to be Earth's most valuable resource. Their acquisition had dramatically changed gem culture in several respects, and gems had seeded them on all the planets they occupied. These humans were largely patriarchal, and so, with some bemusement, the Empire had introduced some forms the humans could parse as 'male' into their breeding pool. It didn't matter much to the Homeworld gems either way. Gems had also started assigning themselves names. As the bureaucracy of the Empire grew (and given that humans found it easier to think in terms of individuals like themselves), it had made sense to adopt designations. First number codes, and then, for later generations, full human-style forms of address. Kerr Avon, technically a high-grade science-stream black Pearl, was among these.

Like most gems of his kind, he'd never quite known what to make of physical contact outside of fusion (which he'd only ever performed in training contexts) and combat (which he preferred to handle from a distance). The same was _not_ true of Blake—whose welfare Avon wasn't overly concerned with, whatever Cally thought. You'd never have known Blake was a proper gem, for all he was a high-grade, project-lead Aventurine Quartz. Blake touched. He came within people's personal space easily, casually. Like it meant little to him--Avon wondered if it did. Blake even seemed to enjoy physical contact--grinning ruefully when Jenna extended a hand so that he could rise when he'd fallen; nestling slumped against Cally on a long stake-out, supporting her smaller body with his solid bulk. Resting a hand on Avon's shoulder. Leaning in close to speak to him.

Avon hardly moved when it happened. His breath caught, and he went unnaturally, inorganically still. Found it difficult to think. Hated the body he occupied, the form that seemed set on making a rube of him, on finding him out.

Blake, in contrast, laughed with his whole body, raged with it. His body was _his_ , and he was of it and in it in a way Avon had never been. Looking at Blake, Avon wondered what it would be like. He watched Blake eating ( _eating!_ ), and _swallowed_.

And Blake was comfortable with humans. He touched Vila and Gan as often as he touched his fellow gems. (Not that Avon paid Blake's peccadilloes a great deal of attention.) Avon theoretically agreed that prejudice against organic life was predicated on mistaken notions of gem superiority (and was even practically inefficient at achieving the Empire's goals). Avon theoretically agreed with almost everything Blake said--though, naturally, he thought about politics in less flowery, impassioned terms than Blake did. Yet though he agreed that organic-gem equality was a logical reality, Avon still found himself awkward in mixed company, automatically making cutting remarks about Vila's predilection for pleasures of the flesh (remarkable even by human standards). Blake didn't seem to find himself awkward anywhere. Oh, there was certainly an element of domineering arrogance to it--Blake never worried he might not be wanted or at home, wherever he went. But there was also an ease, a seemingly genuine belief in what he preached. Blake had a full heart, and he brought it to bear on his convictions in a way that demonstrated an intellectual commitment beyond any that Avon (who thought himself more devoted than Blake to a life of the mind) had ever been able to make. That, in itself, said something about the power of organic bodies, well-used.

 _Wool-gathering?_ Cally asked from right beside him. She'd been behind another boulder, assessing the guards from a different angle. Having decided there were better shots to be had from Avon's vantage point, she'd temporarily made herself a snake and crawled over on her belly when the guard changed, then popped back into her proper shape next to him.

"Picking up Gan's turns of phrase?" Avon whispered back.

 _Of course. There's a great deal of charm in them, and many of them are highly apposite._ She was amused--not a trace of shame at having picked up humanisms laced her presence in his mind. As far as he could recall, she’d never been demonstrably ashamed of being force-grown either. No wonder she and Blake had been able to fuse so easily when they'd needed to escape from Centero--they were very _like_ , in some ways. The thought came with a bitterness that surprised Avon.

"What else do you suggest I do while he keeps us waiting? Unlike Vila, I'm not capable of thinking nothing whatsoever for hours on end."

A sudden explosion sent a plume of smoke billowing up out of the central dome of the compound. The guards Avon and Cally had been watching turned and ran inwards towards it. They'd been poorly trained--a blast like that might have been a distraction, and there might be additional troops waiting to get in. As a matter of fact, there were.

Now that the base was on alert Cally wasted no time, taking out the guards with two precise shots--disruption blasts right through the backs of their gems. In almost the same moment, she'd drawn her spear and was moving in, expecting Avon to follow at her heels. Rather than his own sword, he pulled out the ranged blaster he typically relied on. Cally was ruthless in the service of her ideals--there, too, she reminded Avon of Blake. And not entirely pleasantly.

Cally and Avon rushed into the building, guarding each other. Avon tried to orient himself, to compare the building around him to the diagram he'd examined at on the _Liberator_.

 _This way,_ Cally thought--even when silence wasn't a concern, she seldom used spoken language in the heat of the moment, when she was distracted. He'd have to ask her, later, whether she knew the layout of this type of base from experience, or whether she could sense the others. That information could prove useful.

They were headed, according to the mission objectives, to the central computer core. Now that Vila, with Blake to guard him, had broken through to it and brought the shielding protecting the computer room down, Avon would have less than twenty minutes to access the system itself. The plan had _not_ included quite such a strong contingent of guards, though, and Cally and Avon were wasting valuable time taking cover.

"We may have to--" Avon paused to shoot, "reevaluate our commitment to obliging Blake. Every second we lose--"

_Avon, I believe I can get through this. I am highly experienced in close combat._

Avon grit his teeth. He was aware of that, but _not_ of how it helped them. "What an interesting suggestion--and when you've done it, do you propose to access the computer system yourself?"

_No. That is your province._

"Very true. But while you may be able to cartwheel through the gauntlet unharmed, _I_ would not survive the attempt."

This was twice the usual compliment of guards. They'd missed something, and that set Avon on edge. Then again, so did the regular shriek of the siren. Would someone shut that damn thing off? Surely by now everyone in the base had been sufficiently alerted to the fact that they were under attack.

_You won't have to do it alone, Avon._

Avon stiffened.

 _There isn't much time. We cannot afford to delay any longer. If we cannot get to the core and bring down the base’s anti-teleport field, Blake and Vila will not be able to warp out. And as you say--surviving a blockade like this is a specialist skill. We cannot leave them to die._ There was a curiously kind edge to her firm mental voice, and he hated it.

"Can't we?" he snapped back. There was always a choice. And here he was, making it. If he could even remember how it went.

There was enough room in the alcove they were sheltering in. Barely, but enough. Cally slid like water and he whirled with slick precision and bent her, dipping low, and what straightened up was taller, and its eyes were lit with grim purpose. They drew out Avon's sword, and with Cally's grace and strength and Avon's calculation and determination, they flipped and pelted down the corridor, dual-wielding, slicing through the guards.

Fusion, which proper gems hesitated to do, finding it difficult to achieve the necessary harmony and distasteful even where it was possible, was one of the rebels' key strengths. The situation seldom called for it, but when it did, Blake could—and that alone was a highly unusual skill. Avon had never managed it so neatly before, hadn’t known he could. But then he had needed it very badly today, and he had been afraid for Blake. He wouldn't have said as much, but Cally moved in him and knew him, and Cally was always brutally candid within herself. And yet gentler than Avon, too. An odd thing to think, given the human blood dripping off their spear, their sword. They were pleasingly strong together—Avon found it surprisingly bearable, and Cally liked not being alone. It felt more natural to her than an uninterrupted discrete existence.

They found the control room and started at what greeted them there. A tall creature gave them a cheerful 'lo and gestured towards the main panel with the hand not wielding a giant shield.

"Hurry up," it said, with a decidedly Blakean note of impatient command.

"It's good to see you too, Vilake." Calavon sheathed their weapons, and Calavon's fingers, all four hands' worth of them, moved rapidly over the console. There was no time, now, to think about how Blake had fused with a human--how he'd even _managed_ that.

Avon had been right--there _was_ something exceptional about this base that justified the excessive guard compliment. This was one of the Empire's backup relay stations. And they'd hit on it accidentally. Of course it would hardly be publicised. Taking out this relay station could disrupt communication flows and intelligence for the entire quadrant--not to mention provide the _Liberator_ 's crew with a great deal of information. It would also force the Empire to scrabble to work out what Blake and his rebels knew, and to render that information invalid. Calavon would clarify just how well they'd done back on the ship--if they made it back.

"There. Give the transfer a minute to complete, and we can break the anti-teleport field and go. We do not want to rupture the field a second before we have to, or we risk the back-up systems kicking in. You have set the charges?"

"'Course I have!" It was Vila's professional pride, and Blake's rough indignant tone. A part of Calavon stilled unnaturally. Calavon shivered at the point of union, but held.

"What happened here?" Calavon looked Vilake over.

"Needed to get in in a hurry, didn't I? Easier for one man to sneak in than two."

"You are hardly inconspicuous.” Calavon commented neutrally, stopping a part of theirself from rolling their eyes. Hadn't the whole point been for Blake to _guard_ Vila? It was difficult to do that while being him. But then Vila _was_ safer as part of a fusion, and it had worked, Cally pointed out. Avon wished fewer of Blake's terrible ideas would--it gave Blake a degree of confidence entirely disproportionate to the merit of his schemes.

This made three times he'd had to resort to fusion. Blake had fused with Jenna on Amersat, when facing the unstable fusion of a Jasper enforcer called Travis and a slaved, mechanised gem. Blake had fused with Cally soon after meeting her. Blake had fused with a human now, with _Vila_. He seemed to _like_ it. Who was next, Gan? Zen?

 _Why does it matter to you so much?_ Cally asked Avon, and Calavon shivered again but Avon grit their teeth and they held. _It **doesn't**_ _._

Blake had never fused with Avon. And why would he? There had never been any call for it, and--Avon probably--

"It is done," Calavon announced, and the rest went very quickly. They warped up, and Jenna and Gan laughed at the improbable Vilake (Calavon somehow being eminently less amusing). Calavon moved to go, and Vilake caught their arm.

"Good work down there."

“Our pleasure. The next time you need us to risk our lives for one of your poorly-considered suicide-missions, just let us know." Calavon only managed to get it out because Cally would have made the offer unsarcastically.

Vilake's face crinkled in a smile. "Don't worry, _Avon_ , I will."

A part of Calavon found half of Vilake (the irritatingly confident and presumptive half) far more interesting than said part thought said half of Vilake deserved. Annoyed, Calavon broke away and strode out of the warp area.

Calavon split theirself apart in a quiet corridor. Their component parts took a moment to recover, breathing and stretching their divided limbs.

"Avon," Cally said after a moment, tasting his single-name in her mouth like she was reaffirming their difference, "I should tell you--Auronar battle sync makes my joinings somewhat unlike other fusions. In our combined form, I have a greater access to your mind than is common."

Avon's already tense mood soured further. "I apologise. If I'd known, I would have tidied before you came."

"On the contrary--you made a good impression. I like you better than I did. I hadn’t suspected you of quite so much feeling." Cally had a pleasantly wry smile that was always as unexpected as her touch, and Avon wondered if Cally's friendship might be something worth having. "Though I would also suggest that you speak to Blake."

"I do--more often than is good for my health."

"I meant that you should consider telling him that you find it distressing that he hasn't chosen to fuse with _you._ Or perhaps saying that _you_ want to fuse with _him_.”

Avon glared at her. She might as well have drawn her spear and sliced through his gem. "It has somehow never occurred to me to consider the matter in those terms."

"I believe you. Nevertheless."

"I've just considered it. If I want to fall on my own sword, I'll simply pull it out. There is no need to involve anyone else in the matter."

"It's your choice. Do as you like, Avon."

"Oh, I always do." He grinned at her, intentionally off-putting.

"Do you really? " Cally raised her eyebrows. "I should have said you rarely knew precisely what you wanted, and still more rarely allowed yourself to believe that you could have it." Avon had to credit her insight to more than just her battle sync abilities. It was one thing to look into someone's passing, conscious thoughts--another to understand what they might mean. "I left people who meant a great deal to me behind on Auronar. I don't presume that you haven't experienced similar losses--but I wanted to give you the chance to prevent another."

No, Avon thought, she must know better than to presume anything of the kind. She would have felt the shape of Anna underneath his fear of either losing Blake or of speaking to him, underneath his guilt that he'd come to care for someone else perhaps more than he'd cared for a woman he'd have died to protect, but with whom he'd never even considered joining.

Cally had looked into him in the joining, but he hadn’t looked into her, or even tried. He had only cared about the anti-teleport field that would trap Blake in a standoff that could only end in his death. And wasn't their entire existence on the _Liberator_ just a larger, more elaborate version of that doomed standoff? How could this end but in Blake's body--inevitably fused with the nearest thing with a pulse, Avon supposed--draped on the floor, his gem and his idealistic ambitions alike shattered?

Cally had her own history, her own inner life. He knew little of it. And she was worth knowing, while they both lived. And if he couldn't have Blake--if he didn't have it in himself to offer what Blake needed, even for the brief duration of a fusion--then he could, perhaps, have and be a friend to someone.

"Who did you lose, Cally?"

She opened her mouth, and closed it again in a soft smile. "Perhaps I shall tell you, some day." She reached out her hand and squeezed his shoulder. Her expression said she knew now how irritating he found it, that this amused her, and that she planned to do it a great deal more in future.

"Remember to tell Blake about the relay station," Cally said as Avon turned towards his room.

"Ah." Avon grimaced. "Of course."

"And perhaps during that conference you might _also_ be inspired to disclose--"

"Shut up, Cally."

"It was simply a suggestion," Cally said with good humour, ducking the work and cheekily heading off to her room, as Avon had intended to do.

Avon entered the flight deck and found the others had dispersed, leaving Blake (himself again) alone on the sofa. He was biting his knuckle (why did he _do_ that? It was so _disgusting_ and _physical_ that Avon couldn't look away), clearly lost in thought.

"Blake," Avon said to catch his attention, coming to stand behind him, at his shoulder. He favoured the position because it was powerful--standing while Blake sat. (Though no one appeared to have ever told Blake as much. If Blake had ever felt intimidated, Avon hadn’t been there to see it.) It also allowed Avon space to guard his expressions, and kept him from having to look at Blake full-on. And, to balance the equation, it gave Avon a chance to stare unguardedly at Blake's broad shoulders and thick, moss-green curls.

Avon had never claimed that his motives agreed with each other.

"Mm?" Blake asked, turning his head to look at the nearest bit of Avon, which happened to be his hand. The hand he'd laid on the couch, suspiciously near Blake's shoulder.

"Perhaps you wondered why there were far more guards than we'd anticipated? Or hadn't the thought crossed your mind?"

"As a matter of fact it had," Blake admitted. "That's just what I was considering. I suppose you're going to tell me.”

Avon smiled, but did not answer immediately, unable to resist drawing it out a little, savouring it. He enjoyed Blake's attention and approbation, even as he disliked that he did.

Blake looked up at Avon's face. " _Well_?"

"A _relay station_ , Blake,” Avon hissed, and saw Blake’s eyes widen pleasingly. "We have access to an order of magnitude more data than we bargained for."

"That certainly explains it,” Blake said, his voice much calmer than he presumably was. He fingered his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Can you set up a programme-cascade to process it all?"

"Can Jenna fly?" She was a pilot. And she had wings. That was a yes, then.

Blake chuckled, and turned back so he was no longer looking at Avon. "I meant what we said, earlier."

Avon's lip quirked. “Which part? Perhaps that quaint exchange where Vilake was talking about how much easier life as a thief would be if you could shift your form, and how lucky gem criminals must have it, not that there were any, except of course the unbridled criminality of the system itself?"

"I _meant_ to thank you for your help--your excellent assistance, given at great personal risk to yourself, before you say anything else. You make thanking you rather difficult."

"I have never understood the point of compliments."

“But, of course, one doesn't always need to understand something to appreciate it."

"Well. 'You're welcome', Blake."

"Any time," Blake said, after a moment. He glanced back at Avon. ”Was that--your first time fusing?"

"After the academy? Yes." Avon's posture got more rigid. Did he want Blake to talk about it? Or did he really truly, deeply need Blake not to so much as say the word ‘fusing’ again?

"How did you find it?"

"Bearable."

"Because it could be important," Blake said quickly, seeming impatient. "For us all to be able to manage it, with whoever we’re paired with. You never know--"

" _You_ certainly never do," Avon snapped. Hadn't he just managed it? And to save Blake? What more did the man want from him?

And there again, it was on the tip of his tongue to suggest that they practice together--to concoct a pretext for it. But he didn't think it would sound like anything other than _'take me now',_ and Blake would stare at him and awkwardly say that hadn't been what he was getting at, actually, and Avon would melt into the floor and Gan would have to vacuum him up while trying to be blokey and sympathetic in his nauseatingly folksy way.

No thank you.

"I'll start on the data," Avon offered.

"Right." Blake turned away, thinking about whatever it was Blake thought about when not proselytising his cause. Probably new ways to get them all killed.

Avon turned on his heel and left to mentally write and cross-out a long list of possible circumstances that might possibly necessitate a fusion between himself and Blake, from sprained ankles in a chase to a sudden need to engineer an entire computer complex in a limited time-frame.

And to design a cascade data processing system--he left to do that, too.

***

On the force-grown planet Terminal, Avon crept down a corridor. The false-heart of his assumed body was lodged in a throat that felt terribly real, in a body that ached with exhaustion because it had been pushed beyond even the extraordinary limits of gem forms. Weeks, he had been up, without any opportunity to retreat inside his gem and recuperate. He remembered having once been on a mission with Cally, where all he'd cared about, all he'd thought about, was how to safely extricate Blake from a mess largely of his own making. He'd been stupid, then. Naive. He'd thought they were living in conditions of insupportable danger. He'd thought he could manage to safely contain what he'd felt for Blake. He'd thought Cally might possibly be worth making an ally of. He'd thought not speaking to Blake about his feelings was the better part of valour.

Since then, their situation had disintegrated so drastically as to cast a comparatively positive light on those early days. Avon had learned the pathetically short limits of his self-control. He'd learned that Cally was an enormous asset, and one of the few decent people he'd ever known. In learning this, he'd managed to alienate her to the point that she was ready to leave him, if any convenient opportunity to do so came along. (Once she'd claimed to understand him, to a degree, and not to find the knowledge repulsive. Now he didn't ask if her opinion had changed--he was rather afraid that he knew her answer.)

And Avon had learned that he would risk anything to speak to Blake.

But then wasn't he still a fool? Wasn't he risking more than he had to bargain with (not just his own life, but the _Liberator_ and the safety of the others) to speak to Blake now?

Through a window in the corridor, Avon spotted a familiar green form stretched prone on a table and secured there. He slipped into the room, approaching cautiously. When he'd crept to the lip of the table itself, he stared down at the body. Bearded--and probably eyeless, under the thick bandages. Of course. If Blake had had access to his healing tears, he would hardly be critically injured now. What the hell had happened to him?

"Blake," Avon murmured.

Blake stirred. "Well," he said after a moment, "you certainly took your time finding me."

"There didn't seem to be any hurry. Anyway, I always said I could manage very well without you."

Avon responded automatically while he evaluated the situation. Banter had always come easily, between them. While most people found Avon's unflattering opinions dampening enough to force them to slink away, Blake, irrepressibly confident, persisted and even often came out on top in their verbal contests. It had never really occurred to Avon to mind. Oh, he minded a great many things about Blake--but not being outperformed by him. That, he found rather attractive.

Blake was brutally injured. The only reason he or whoever was caring for him wouldn't have resorted to a full-body reset was a cracked gem. And sure enough, spidery lines traced across Blake’s quartz. Without access to a gem with healing abilities similar to Blake's own, there was little that whoever was helping or holding him could do--and Blake's abilities were exceptional, and in short supply.

However until now, Avon hadn't been sure Blake was alive at all. Comparatively, this was a decided improvement.

"It must have been so _dull_ having no one to argue with." Blake smiled, and Avon swallowed.

"Well, now, there were times when your simple-minded certainties might have been refreshing." And they could talk about them later. At the moment, they needed to figure out a solution to their immediate problem.

They traded a few more barbs, and Avon brought up the mysterious discovery Blake claimed he'd made, before Blake disclosed that he couldn't survive being removed from these machines. Avon insisted they could duplicate the apparatus on the _Liberator_ , suspecting all the while what Blake was about to tell him next--that it was no good. A cracked gem might shatter in the stress of the warp, Avon knew that.

"There's another solution," Avon offered. “True, you can't leave here, or heal--not _alone_ , anyway.” Fused, they could get out of the compound. Fused, Blake's body would stabilise--enough to set his gem, and enough, then, to allow Blake to return to it and reset his physical form entirely.

"Are you suggesting—?" Blake laughed, weakly. "I'm flattered by the invitation, of course, but I'm _hardly_ in a condition to dance."

"I suppose you'll have to let me lead, for once," Avon murmured.

"Are you serious, Avon? Do you want to? Do you think we _can?_ I never asked because I imagined--"

"It's the only way, isn't it?" Avon cut him off, not willing to entertain this discussion now. If he was going to humiliate himself before Blake by actually talking about how much he wanted this, it would be on his own terms--and those, naturally, included doing so somewhere reasonably safe and comfortable, when neither of them was in danger of dying. Blake wasn't Cally--Blake couldn't see deeply into his mind in the fusion. There was little risk of him learning anything he shouldn’t, not if Avon tried not to think of it. And Avon was, by now, well-versed in putting thoughts of Blake out of his mind so that he could function.

"How do you think it'll work then, with me lying here like a lump?"

"Oh, I expect I'll manage all the better without your overly-energetic contributions."

Avon circled Blake's body, methodically. Some humans married like this. He wondered if that was a parody of gem unions, or if it meant something different to them. Slow, but straining with intensity. Willing and wanting. He came to a sudden stop and ran his hand through the air over Blake's body, an inch away, up his torso and under his neck, and Blake threw his head back and Avon's mouth parted, and seized by a sudden impulse he grabbed Blake roughly by the shoulders and kissed him.

 _Shit_ , he thought. And then he thought it a great deal more as his body began to melt into something Diamond-hard that his mind screamed was _not Blake_. He panicked, but the equipment exerted some kind of field that pushed the union deeper and kept him from escaping its pull once he'd begun it.

"Thank you, Avon. I could never have managed the process without your cooperation. _Servalan._ Of course. You don't seem surprised to see me. If it was a trap, it had to be yours. The precise planning, the meticulous detail, the general flair, who else could it be. Thank you. That you of all people should appreciate my work is very flattering. I thought it might be. Oh _by the way,_ Avon, I've never fused quite like that before! Such an unusual method--oh _shut up._ Reduced to incivility, Avon? Frankly, Servalan, you're not worth my best efforts, and I'm a _little busy_ at the moment."

Avon was trying desperately to tug himself free, but to no avail.

"A holographic projection, then?" they asked theirself. But it has been so _like him_. No hologram was so precise!

"Naturally. We recreated Blake inside our computers--voice, images, memories, a million fragmented facts. Our psychostrategists predicted you would react this way. I simply had to lie down and wait while you performed your _charming_ routine. Why aren't we ripping apart, then? You may have noticed that we are not entirely in accord. Mm, no--but then I've always thought we could be, Avon, if you honestly tried. Was Blake ever here? Blake is dead. He died from his wounds on the planet Jevron more than a year ago. I saw his gem shatter. I saw it become dust. Blake is dead. _You’re lying._ Aren’t you more interested in what’s happening to _you_ , Avon? Terminal is a research station--and what they developed, before a misguided predecessor of mine scrapped the project, was the technology to enforce an uncooperative fusion. Not to begin it--they never got as far as that--but to maintain it, for as long as was necessary. Portable, of course. And you can imagine the industrial applications. Vividly. Witness them now.

“Orac,” Avalan spoke into their communicator bracelet, and there was enough of Avon in the voice for Orac to recognise and obey. "Bring me up."

What neither of them knew then was that the _Liberator_ was collapsing around them. Servalan's mind was sufficiently out of sync with Avon's that he managed to conceal his shock at the state of the place, and his horrible realisation about what was happening to the vessel.

Servalan sent Dayna and Vila down to the planet and demanded maximum power of the dying ship--really, did she assume it always looked like this? Avon was far more orderly in his inclinations than that.

Avon concentrated. He thought about how Servalan had appropriated his body to command Orac and Zen, and would undoubtedly discard him as soon as she'd no more use for him--or worse, keep him alive and _find_ a use for him. How he'd been forced to fuse with her against his will, how he'd been made a fool of. How she'd seen his need for Blake and used it. How easy it had been, how easy _he'd_ made it. How he'd been promised _Blake_ , and now she claimed Blake was _dead_ , and he couldn't even tell if she was lying to him. What did any of that matter, if Blake was dead? Perhaps it didn't--but if it _was_ true, then someone should be made to suffer for it, and Servalan was responsible if anyone was.

"What are you doing?" Avalan asked theirself, and Avalan smiled in answer. "You trapped me because you knew what I wanted," Avalan told theirself, walking over to the rack of blasters. "I think perhaps you failed to realise how much I wanted it. You see, it's difficultto push a person to the brink of madness--but only to the _brink_. You want them to make irrational decisions, in your favour. But of course the thing about irrational decisions is that they're very difficult to control. You _wouldn't_ ,” pushed itself out from under their worlds, and Avalan smiled. “Wouldn't I?"

One hand gripped the elbow of the hand that drew out a blaster, preventing them from turning the weapon on theirself. Avalan simply used another hand to draw another--the _Liberator_ recognised Avalan as two individuals now, meriting two blasters. Controlling 'Servalan's' hand was more difficult--but then his will was stronger than hers, in this case, because he cared far more. Hurt more. Wanted more. Hated _more_ than someone as detached as Servalan ever could.

"I loved him, you see." And it scraped out of their throat, and the _I_ felt so good he said it again, "I loved him", and the shame of her knowing and the bitterness of it made him stronger, and he turned the second blaster on theirself with relative ease. Avalan would destroy theirself, or Avalan would split apart.

Avalan would die by the blaster, or when the ship broke up, or perhaps in the unsightly pool of organs and gem shards that marked a fusion gone wrong. (He remembered when Blake had fused with Gan to try and save Gan's life at the decoy Central Control. It hadn't worked, and they'd ripped apart messily. Gan had died, and Blake had barely survived, and had then tried to get himself killed again out of crazed guilt. And Avon had been furious with him, about all of it.) Avon was prepared for that.

What he wasn't prepared for was for Servalan to blink. He'd never thought her a coward. Terrified for her own safety, she shut off the portable control-field that bound them together--and went flying across the room, smacking into the wall with an impact that seemed to audibly crack her head. Avon, himself thrown into the warp console, had no time to be dazed. He grabbed Orac from the console’s top and hissed at Ensor's gem to warp him down to the surface, _now._ Orac sent the final warp command. Servalan was trapped when the ship exploded. If she survived at all, then she would drift across the vastness of space in her gem form.

Avon stumbled into the compound, disheveled, to the amazement of the _Liberator_ 's erstwhile crew.

"That might have gone worse," he rasped. Thoroughly exhausted, he promptly fell over and reverted to gem form.

***

"Vila," Avon called, soft and coaxing, "it's perfectly safe."

"Like hell it is!" Vila shouted from somewhere. The sound clanged around the ship's metal interior, and Avon couldn't pinpoint the source.

"Vila, I know you're here," Avon tried, reigning in the panic in his voice with a supreme effort of will. "Come out. Vila, I know how they did it, but I need your help. Please help me." But he didn't know, and he was going to kill Vila, just as surely as he'd gotten Cally killed on Terminal. But at least _this time_ he could say he'd looked Vila in the eye as he'd done it. Cally had died crying out for Blake--in pain, probably, knowing that if he _had_ been on Terminal, if he'd been whole, he would have had only to weep those copious, sentimental tears of his to heal her.

Avon's gem stood only a small chance of surviving a shuttle crash--he wasn't a resilient diamond like the seemingly indestructible Servalan. Ensor's gem might not make it either, Ensor's delusions of immortality via Orac aside. And breakable, human Villa was going to die, whatever Avon did.

"If Blake were here--" Vila shouted.

"If _Blake_ were here," Avon seethed, his thin control worn through, "we'd still have the _Liberator_ , and Cally. Finally saying what you've been thinking all along, Vila? Shall I tell you where we'd be, if Blake were here instead of me? We'd be in some other mess instead of this one, and we'd have balked at the prospect of directly threatening inhabited worlds--though I might be wrong about that. I didn't see it giving him much pause at Star One. We might all be dead by now, as dead as Gan, but we'd probably all _feel_ better about it, if that sort of thing matters to you. But, as it happens, I am _not_ Blake, and I lack his fool-hardy confidence--without, it seems, having many better ideas about how to keep us safe. And for what it's worth, if we are going to die here, then I am s _orry_ , Vila. Sorry I couldn't protect Cally or you, any better than he ever could. I'm sorry about a lot of things. Does that _satisfy_ you, Vila?"

There was a moment of silence. Avon supposed he should treasure it. They were rare enough, in Vila's company. And besides, he didn't have many moments left. Vila was scared, well, so was he. He didn’t know what to do. Perhaps he never had.

Then Vila’s muttered, ”I was going to say, if Blake were here instead of you, we could fuse and he could try changing shape, getting smaller, like your lot can do. Less weight that way, right? I mean I don't know how mass works, with all that mumbo jumbo."

"…Ah." Avon cleared his throat. "Now there _is_ a thought."

"I do have them, on occasion."

 _Could_ he do it? Avon wondered. Fuse again--and with a human? With _Vila_?

"You will have to trust me,” he said.

Vila snorted. "Fat chance."

"I _mean it,_ Vila," Avon said through his teeth. "It's your life in my hands--and mine in yours. You remember what happened with Gan."

"Difficult to forget."

"And _that_ was with Blake--who had both a great deal more experience than I, and a far greater love for the common man. _Well?_ "

"It's better than a death sentence."

"I'm not so sure of that, but if we are going to try, then we might as well get on with it."

"You're not going to chuck me if I come--"

" _Come on_ , Vila!"

Vila emerged from a locker, and Avon, to his credit, barely considered shooting him. "Right," he put down his gun. "Think of it--like a conversation.”

“That’s not what Blake said,” Vila said with a grin as he broke into--some ridiculous movements Avon supposed were human dance forms. “Come on, Avon. It’s a way to go out at least, if it doesn't work."

"It's certainly inspiring my efforts. If I have to die watching you _jiving_ \--" Avon was surprised by how easy it was to move with Vila. It was like banter--like when the two of them played off each other and had a grand time. Like pulling off the heist in Freedom City, right under Blake's nose, in the teeth of (mild, acceptable) danger. For a _lot of money_. And shockingly, Avon could feel it working--he-- _they_ \--pushed at the good memory and struggled into it like you'd pull a turtleneck over your head on a cold day.

"Knew it'd work!" Vilavon crowed. "For a little man I'm a wonderful mover, wouldn't you say? _Don't_ split us apart with your nonsense! No no, 'course not. Come on!”

They ran to the flight deck and squeezed. Vila wasn't used to it, but it came naturally to Avon. "Orac, is it enough?"

“No. You cannot displace _Vila's_ mass, Avon! And what little remains of your own renders your combined weight still in excess of the permissible total sum. Estimated remaining flight time, two minutes!"

Vilavon flickered. "What are we going to do now? I--we can't both get down into your gem-form! Maybe you do have to leave me--I did _not_ go through all of this and endure your pathetic attempt at dancing to lose now! We have to _think!_ Well, it's got to be something on the ship--something really heavy, something we overlooked--we just have to find it--hang on, I tripped over something earlier. A little plastic cube. I couldn't budge. Funny, I thought--Vila you _idiot!_ "

Vilavon ripped apart, and Avon was shaking him. “Where? _Where_?"

"Back near where I was hiding! I’ll show you.”

Avon pelted down the corridor at the heels of a surprisingly fast Vila.

" _Neutron material_ ," Avon realised as he pushed at it. “Vila, come _on!_ "

Working together, they barely managed to get the cube into the airlock. Perhaps Vilavon could have managed it more easily, but there wasn't time.

Back in the control room, en route to the _Scorpio_ , Avon began to laugh with crazed relief. Vila joined in, and when they landed the shuttle, they both thought their near death, their survival, and spectacle of two grown men slowly pushing a tiny cube as if their lives depended on it was the joke of the century.

"I don't understand what's so funny about losing the Tacheon Funnel," Tarrant sulked.

"No," Avon agreed, "you wouldn't."

"It's a trip I won't forget, Avon." Vila took a grateful swig of his soma. "Oh, how I missed you."

"Feel free to book tours through my agency in future--unforgettable experiences with Avon Travel."

"See the stars--and possibly even survive them."

***

That night, lying in bed trying to sleep (it had been a hard enough day that it merited it, even for a gem), Avon tried to push how badly it could have gone out of his mind. As it was, they'd ended up with nothing to show for their efforts. But then, looking at it in another light, they'd destroyed an incredibly powerful weapon before Servalan could use it, and had come out of the exchange with their lives. Knowing Servalan's distaste for failure, Avon suspected that was more than could be said for Egorian and Pinder. Vila trusted Avonmore than he had done, and Avon’s continuing regret over Cally's death suggested that Vila's trust was, actually, worth something to him.

Fusing with Vila had been easier than he'd expected it might be. But then, they'd known each other for some time now, and had been through a great deal together. And it had, after all, been something of a crisis. Avon smiled grimly to himself in the dark.

He hadn't given much thought to fusing with anyone for a long time. Not since Terminal. He could still count on one hand the times he'd fused. Twice in prep-trials and once in his final training exams--all difficult blendings that had held for seconds before collapsing. Just to prove he understood the basic theory. Once, with Cally. And now once with Vila. He didn't count the mistake on Terminal--that would be like counting a box you'd lived in while homeless as a place of residence.

He'd never had the opportunity to fuse because he wanted to. Some gems, he knew, were interested in that sort of recreation. It had always struck Avon as unbearably intimate. Only in Blake's case had he thought he might ever choose such a condition. After all, what Blake made him feel was often unbearable--it might improve the situation if it were intimate as well.

And now finding Blake felt possible again. After Blake’s disappearance, Avon had put in place the core protocols that kept Orac searching for Blake whenever an immediate priority request didn't take precedence. At last there were _good_ leads. Possibilities Orac didn’t scoff at when it mentioned them.

Avon couldn't be certain, not yet, but he felt more and more practically convinced of what he _knew_ to be true--that Blake was _alive_. Lost out there somewhere, certainly; nearly impossible to locate and catch up to, but _still alive_. Of course Servalan had lied to him. He should never have allowed himself to think otherwise—but it had been an emotional lapse of judgment, and it was over with.

Maybe weeks, now. Maybe months. _Still._ _Blake_.

In the stillness of the night, Avon thought he could hear faltering footfalls in the cabin next to him--two sets. Dayna and Soolin, by the light tread. Tarrant tended to announce his presence rather more definitively than that, and Vila would have banged into something by now. For a thief he could be extraordinarily careless when he wasn't paying attention. Perhaps he thought of grace as a professional skill, and hesitated to employ it when not being recompensed for his efforts.

The steps acquired a certain regularity. Perhaps he shouldn't listen, but he could hardly avoid it. Avon's eyes narrowed. Were they _dancing_? Soolin--was human. But he supposed that he and Vila had only just told the two of them the details of their exploit to Malodaar. Dayna had led something of a sheltered life. She might not have known fusion with a human was possible until today. It was certainly rare--even the more experienced Soolin might have thought it a myth. Perhaps that was why they’d never tried before.

It _was_ dancing--there was Dayna's lunge. He'd seen it the one, disastrous time Tayna had come out. Soolin had had to tranquillise that abomination into submission.

So, Dayna and Soolin were attempting it. To see if they could? Or was there something more going on between them? He'd occasionally suspected as much, but Soolin could be hard to read. Of any human he'd met, she reminded him the most of himself. Or, as Cally would have pointed out with her devastating honesty, of the person he thought he'd like to be.

But could Dayna manage it? Could Soolin, always so self-contained, find it in herself to open?

A _single_ hard thump and a _single_ startled breath. Well, now. That answered that. He heard a murmur. Soolayna saying hello to theirself. A small laugh, and even through the wall, low as the sound was, he could hear in it a degree of real, exuberant pleasure he'd never heard in Soolin's laugh. They were happy in each other, apparently. Wasn't that interesting?

What would it be like? He'd rarely let himself dwell on it. Too pathetic, really. But then in the absence of the genuine opportunity, surely he could at least allow himself the shadow of it? Blake was always so difficult to predict--that was part of what made him interesting. Yet even so. Avon knew, from Blake having fallen on him when there had been turbulence, that Blake had… a not-unpleasing bulk. Knew that he was surprisingly warm. Perhaps flowing into him would feel… big.

This was _stupid._

No, he'd begun now. It would feel full. Warm as a pool, in the mineral springs gems used to restore themselves. Perhaps Blake would have been crying--slick wetness on the hard apples of his cheeks, tingling, almost burning where it touched you, electric and relentless wellness building you up into more than you'd been before. (Blake had smoothed the moisture on him after he’d been injured on Exbar, and Avon had turned away and bit his lip to keep from making any noise.) And Avon--always too sharp, too quick--would slice down into Blake until he met Blake's unyielding resistance, the indomitable force and substance of him. And there, at the core of Blake, he'd stick and could finally rest. Avon would be secure, there. He could open for Blake. Like he'd never opened for anyone.

Avon felt his muscles stiffen and his cheeks burn with something like shame and a hard wanting that made his limbs heavy. Alone and stock-still, he felt his edges blur with a fevered, ratcheted-up need to bleed into something. If he wanted it any more he'd fuse with Dorian's shoddy bed. Fusing with Vila, as unromantic as _that_ had been, had still left him with a restless craving for a more profound mixture. He wanted to dash himself into Blake, to make Blake feel him, to force their atoms into indivisible union. And if _Blake_ wanted that with _him_ \--

From the next room Avon, who hadn't really been paying attention, heard a small, pinched gasp. Soolayna? It didn't sound like anything was wrong. Were they…touching theirself? The thought struck Avon as ridiculous, but he was keyed up enough that it also struck him as intensely erotic. Some gems tried _that_ , too. Oh, it was gauche. Extreme. Suddenly--and it never before had been--very appealing. He and Blake could touch theirself like that, if they were—

He stopped short of thinking their fusion name. It had never happened. They'd never been, and thus did not yet exist, as such. But they _could_ exist, and if they did...Or they could do it like humans. Theoretically their physical forms _did_ work like that. In the early days on the _Liberator_ , Jenna and Blake had both admitted, in casual conversation, to having had gem and human lovers, at one time or another. Avon remembered having found the discussion very disturbing at the time. Now he supposed he knew some of the several reasons why it had bothered him so much.

Mentally he ran through the list of all the forms of human sex he knew. Perhaps there was a casual way to bring the subject up with Vila, who was sure to know of a few more, and who was unlikely to take it as a proposition. Did he want Blake to--yes. And did he want to-- _yes_. That seemed… unhygienic, but fortune did favour the bold. _That_ seemed improbable--but then Avon _did_ value new experiences. And what hadn't he already done for Blake?

Swallowing, and taking the rather drastic step of temporarily ridding himself of his sense of hearing so that he didn't get distracted by Soolayna or invade their privacy (what if an alarm went off? oh, what did he care?), Avon smoothed a hand down his body--the reverse of the gesture he'd used to fuse with the false Blake. He couldn't fuse, not on his own. And he couldn't fuck into Blake's warm, plush, giving body like some ridiculous mammal--not without Blake _here_ , anyway. But he could phase away his clothing and run his hand down to his physical cock, which came complete with all the right nerve endings. He could mute his vocal cords so that he could mouth 'Blake' and no one would hear, not even himself (now that really _would_ be embarrassing). And he could pump himself until his mouth dropped open like it had when he'd tried to fuse with Blake, and until his head dropped back like the near-perfect computer simulation of Blake’s had when Avon had tried to fuse with him, and until a rush of energy like and unlike the feeling of fusion, or a very good day, or a surge of pure energy, ripped through him and answered lust too thick to think through.

Afterwards, tidying himself and restoring his physical form more generally, Avon felt rather embarrassed. And like he'd do it every night, schedule permitting--at least until Orac confirmed the Gauda Prime rumour.

Maybe weeks, now. Maybe months. _Blake_.

***

"Avon, I think he's here," Tarrant said breathlessly. Avon and Vila looked at each other. A woman started to call security, and Avon incapacitated her with a low-impact blaster bolt, automatically spinning the gauge back to the standard impact setting after pulling the trigger. They weren't exactly likely to be friendly. They’d been holding Tarrant here, after all.

Then Avon's eyes widened, because Tarrant was right. There Blake was, one eye covered by a patch, as though the events on Terminal had been a prophecy. Why didn't Blake just cry? Perhaps something was wrong with him. Maybe he didn't cry easily, any more.

"Is it him?" Tarrant asked.

"It's him," Vila confirmed, confusion in his voice.

"He sold us, Avon," Tarrant insisted. "All of us. Even you."

Avon--tried to process that. He lowered the gun, approaching Blake. Of course it wasn't right. And yet—Anna had betrayed him. And somehow he _trusted_ Tarrant. And he trusted the evidence of his own eyes, which didn't look particularly good for Blake.

"Is it true?" Avon asked, and he wished he'd removed his sense of hearing for this too, because he could hear the ragged mess of his voice (so much for concealing anything from the assembled), and because he didn't _want_ to hear Blake's answer.

Vila, who seemed more attuned to Avon after their misadventure in the shuttle, piped up. "How _can_ it be? Tarrant must've got it wrong!"

"Avon, it's me, Blake." Blake's tone was--pleading? Avon didn't trust himself to judge. He _wanted_ to believe Vila. Blake said _'it's me, Blake,'_ as though that was enough, and Avon wanted it to be.

Blake started to move forward. So trusting. Unless he was trying to outflank Avon, to get Avon's gun off him.

"Stand still!" And for _once_ Blake did as he was told. "Have you betrayed us?" Avon demanded, aware his incredulous pitch was shifting to something almost hysterical. "Have you betrayed _me?_ "

"Tarrant doesn't understand!" Blake insisted, with the old grand anger that made Avon's heart hurt and made him want to be sick.

"Neither do I, Blake!" Let the next words out of Blake’s mouth be _right_. Let them fix everything, somehow--

"I set all this up!” Blake insisted.

There it was. "Yes!" Avon confirmed, with the ecstatic rapture of a martyr. Here was the worst of it, here was the agony, and of _course_ this was how it would end. With even Blake brung low. Avon hadn’t even _considered_ that he might be betrayed like _this_.

"Avon, I was waiting for _you_ ," Blake tried, and Avon, with Vila's shred of doubt twitching in his fingers, barely, unthinkingly, spun the power-knob down to low intensity before he shot.

" _Avon_!" Vila shouted as Blake continued, unarmed except with the stupid determination that had always characterised him, to walk towards Avon like someone who knew he'd be accepted, even though his gem was cracking in his stomach. Like a faithful, beaten dog coming home. Like an implacable enemy, coming at him.

The low power had been enough to damage him. A full-power hit would have shattered him instantly. A second or third shot at the current levels would do the deed just as effectively though if Blake didn’t _stop._

"Avon, wait a minute!" Vila pleaded.

Avon's finger stilled on the trigger, and he let Blake come over him like a wave. Blake's knees began to buckle, and he grabbed at Avon's arms. Avon stood there. Let him.

"Avon," Blake murmured. "I would _never_ betray you."

Some red-haired human rushed in to say the Empire had found them, to tell Blake the base was under attack. The human woman who'd come in with Blake, who the red-haired man called Arlen, twitched as though she was turning to shoot the new arrival. Soolyana (who had never yet unfused since their first joining, blended Soolin's skill with Dayna's gem reflexes) was quicker on the draw. Soolyana shot Arlen, and the red-haired man rushed towards the scene as Imperial troops poured into the room.

Just in time, miraculously, Blake's familiar green bubble blinked into existence, shielding them all. Blasts ricocheted off it, backfiring onto the troops that had shot them off. Their corpses made it difficult for new troops to clamber into the room.

Confused, Avon looked down at the body in his arms. If Blake wasn’t working with the Empire, _if he had been telling the truth--_

"I'm dying," Blake said urgently, still trying to give orders. "When the shield goes--you have to--"

"You are not dying, you _idiot_. The gun was on _low power_ ,” Avon said desperately.

“It was enough.”

“What was all this?” Avon demanded to keep Blake talking and with him while he tried to piece together what was going on. “You were _pretending_ to be a bounty hunter? You were… testing people, like Arlen? Like Tarrant? Like _me_ , Blake?"

Blake managed something like a grimace and like a smile. "Never needed to test you, Avon. Always trusted--you. Still do. Ironic, isn't it? I've wanted so much to tell you--"

"You _stupid son of a bitch_ ," Avon responded, succinctly. Blake just laughed. Gurgled wetly. "If you think I'm letting you go without rebuke for this utterdisaster, you have another thing coming."

Outside the shield, which looked a little thinner now, troops scrambled in over their fellows. They pressed closer, clearly intending to rush those assembled inside when the bubble gave out. Aside from Avon who was still holding Blake, and Blake himself, all the others in the bubble readied weapons. There was some improbable fusion of Soolyana, Tarrant and Vila in the works. The red-haired man held Arlen's abandoned gun and looked on, bemused.

"I don't see how even _you_ can keep me around to yell at me,” Blake said with a weak smile.

The spidery cracks in Blake's gem widened, and a mote of dust drifted from the fracture to the ground. Avon's own heart, which had cracked similarly at Blake's supposed betrayal, broke entirely.

"Don't you?" And there again Avon's voice was a shambles. Stupid to notice. It didn't matter now.

"I can't heal anymore, Avon. I haven't been able to since I couldn't save Jenna."

"There's another way."

Blake shook his head. "I can’t fuse with you either, I’m afraid.”

Avon swallowed thickly. Not even now? "It might save you."

"Avon I _can't fuse_ ," Blake said, ragged, breath going. "Not after Gan--I haven't been able to."

It was difficult to imagine Blake deprived of one of his greatest strengths. "You can't trust, is that it? And yet you claimed to have always trusted me, Blake. Trust me just this one, last time." If he had to die, Avon thought, let it be here. Let it be with him.

"You think I can dance like _this_?" The anger was back--Blake was still fighting.

"It's largely the will and the accord. The movement's just a symbol." Avon said it as though it was obvious, though he'd only now put together what his experience on Terminal and fusing with Vila had suggested.

"You think we can—?"

"I _know we can_ ," Avon hissed through his teeth. "Come on, Blake. Let's go down swinging." Avon plunged his mouth down to Blake's and kissed him voraciously, and Blake's head tipped back _just so_ \--Avon really had to hand it to Servalan's programmers.

I want you so much, he thought into Blake. I want to be in you and with you and for you, and if I have to take your death on myself, _I will_.

It seemed that wouldn't be necessary. They could feel their blaster-shot chest knitting together, their gems made smooth and whole from the energy they poured into each other. Blake's eye twitched--not whole, but like something quick, the dead muscles showing signs of possible recovery. The well of energy that fusion produced pounded through them, and Blake's shield grew firm and thick and pressed out and back. Avon's defensiveness was turned to brutal purpose. The troopers didn't have time to clear the room and escape. The swelling, mobile bubble pressed them into the room's walls. The human troopers choked against it, screamed as it crushed their bones. Then the pinned gem troopers began to scream in turn as the shield frequency adjusted and the shield's material itself began to burn them, achieving a heat that started to melt their weak gems.

"Get ready," the new fusion commanded, and the shield burst into shrapnel that flew out, razor sharp, killing the troopers out in the hallway who'd been able to run away from the expanding shield.

"There may be more coming," Deva murmured, after a moment.

"Soolyarrila?" Blavon asked.

"On it.” Three-quarters of the fusion grinned. One of its eyes twitched and the remaining quarter whined, “Do we _have_ to?”

Blavon ignored him. ”Deva, alert the base. Get someone to help Klyn, it was only a stun blast. We have to begin the evacuation immediately."

"I'm fairly sure it's already begun," Deva shot back pertly, but he dove back into his control booth to coordinate efforts.

"Well," Blavon began, "was that _really_ necessary? It was rather bloodthirsty. You thought of some of it. I'd have hesitated. For which there wasn't time. Would you have preferred I ask them to surrender? Well, yes, as a matter of fact— _No_ , Blake. _This_ is exactly the demanding, dictatorial nonsense I'd expect from you--and after what you pulled today--you nearly got me killed, if you remember, you nearly got _yourself_ killed. Why in _hell_ did I come back for this?"

Abruptly, Blavon was two men, standing nose to nose and panting with frustration and exertion. Blake was whole, and he ripped off his eyepatch as though it itched. Avon was exhausted, and furious that there was a whole evacuation to organise before he could rest, let alone before they could have a proper conversation.

He and Blake couldn't hold a fusion longer than a few minutes. What did that mean? He hadn't wanted to live like Soolyana. In fact he found the prospect somehow distasteful, at odds with what he valued and wanted in Blake. But what did it say, that they couldn't successfully do this for longer than it took to survive a crisis? Had Avon been--mistaken, somehow? Were they simply incompatible? Oh god what would he _do_ if they were--

"Stop looking at me like that," Avon snarled, suddenly humiliatingly aware that some of what he’d been thinking must have showed on his face, because Blake was looking at him with a knowing smile and his eyes were insufferably bright.

"It's good to have you back," Blake replied, and Avon wanted to laugh and to groan and to hit him.

"You've a funny way of showing it. Besides, we still can't get along. As we've just proved."

"Oh, I don't know, Avon." Blake's voice was curiously rough and… interesting. "I've always valued the times we could come to an agreement all the more for their rarity. And the brevity of those occasions hasn't made them any less memorable. Besides, what did Gan used to say? Practice makes perfect?"

As though he were a much younger version of himself, Avon stilled unnaturally. Blake grabbed the over-complicated lapels of Avon's jacket and hauled the smaller man into a bruising kiss. Avon had never imagined anything quite like it. Which was good, all things considered, because the nightly masturbation sessions had been rather excessive as it was. Avon felt his edges blur, but kept himself to himself.

He pulled back to look Blake square in the eyes. "Everything I ever did, I did for you," Avon said, like he was fucking furious about it.

Blake laughed and held him tight, and his body was warm and giving and everything Avon had imagined, and it was infinitely more, because Blake was always more than the sum of Avon’s imaginings.

"I've always loved you," Blake admitted, like it was possibly a bad idea and he really didn't care. "Just you." And that was enough, for Avon. Actually, it was perfect.

“Blake!” Deva popped out of the control room. “There’s a problem!”

“Yes,” Blake said dryly. “Yes, I had noticed.”

“The ships are ready, and we have all the emergency supplies loaded, and the last med team’s en route to pick up Klyn—”

“So far so good.”

“But we lost the computer core before Avon’s people took out the reinforcements, and we can’t plot and coordinate outbound flight paths without it. The watchtowers report that the Empire’s sending a second wave of troops from a satellite base on the lesser continent. They’ll be here in an hour, maybe two.”

“So you’re saying, Deva, that we’ll need to engineer an entire computer complex,” Blake said.

“In a limited time frame,” Avon added.

“Goodness,” Blake deadpanned. “What a shame.”

Deva blinked. “Yes. Yes I suppose that could just work. Could you manage it?”

“ _Well_ ,” Avon drawled, “not _alone_. I’d need a very talented engineer.”

“That’s very interesting, because I was just thinking _I’d_ need an exceptional computer expert--Avon,” Blake took his hand, “how does your dance card look? Might I claim you for the first two?”

“Why Blake, I thought you’d never ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Aralias, notes from Elviaprose and Wellharkather.


End file.
